This makes me so angry but what makes me even angrier is that NONE of my colleagues has the guts or leadership to get out there and challenge this drivel.
I warn you my science leaders-you reap what you sow. Oprah has a vast and tuned-in audience, and this “book” has large sales figures. Your lack of scientific leadership and silence on these issues will eventually lead to a population that undermines and questions the validity of your own work.
Don’t believe me? Just look at what the silence of many economists just lead to in the world credit markets.
You better catch up to the times, or else the cute Galileo Galilei story taught to your children will not be such a distant memory.
Postscript: I feel the need to add an addendum to this post, read below:
Why is my anger relevant? Why am I so passionate about the lack of science culture and leadership?
If we look at the recent global problems with the capital markets, we begin to see an argument made that “open market capitalism” which I equate with “open markets of ideas” is dead-that regulation is the key.
As I have written in earlier posts, regulation by central planners will not end at economics-it will continue to science and this will lead to a decrease in innovation…but this is for another time.
The real issue is that “…the real wealth of nations lies in human capital, not its financial markets. Financial markets can be fixed if human capital exists. Without human capital nothing can be fixed. The USA remains the only Western country with a growing, highly skilled population.”
Having a highly skilled population is the key to research, development, innovation and ultimately-WEALTH!
But if you have a population that shuns innovation and knowledge for the safe haven of relativism and dogma (as can be seen in the Jenny McCarthy link I posted), then you have essentially a low skilled population of backward-thinking “flat-earthers.” (Warning: I am not discussing morality and religion here, just thinking about science…)
If this is the case, the both they and us, the supposed “enlightened” ones, will be sinking on the same ship.
To keep the highly skilled and growing population we need-we need science leaders that are willing to challenge the relativity that is so popular on the self-help and “science” shelves at the local Barnes and Noble bookstore and on Oprah. There are right and wrong answers and although not as fun as dogma, these answers are our ultimate road to truth and freedom.
Good post, Michael.
(Warning: I am not discussing morality and religion here, just thinking about science…)
But you are, to some extent, inevitably. We can’t discuss science disconnectedly (unless we don’t get out much).
If it makes you angry, Michael, do something.
I’m going to play devil’s advocate here, so hold on to your hats. I hear, very often, scientists complaining about this. But that’s all they do – complain. Most scientists seem curiously reluctant to engage the public in any serious or professional way, or in any way at all. This used to be because scientists thought of themselves as wizards who didn’t need to consort with the masses. But this is only a cover. The fact is that scientists are often shy and awkward people who don’t like crowds and confrontation and are afraid of celebrity, and sucpicious of those who court it. It’s an institutional probvlem. I think that public engagenment and media training sould be mandatory requirements of any respetable scientific training.
To be fair, Henry, very few scientists are celebrities like Jenny McCarthy (who?), so unless you’re Stephen Hawking or Robert Winston, even if a scientist wants to go beyond muttering and go public, it’s not so easy to do.
That’s true. And there’s also the problem that any scientist who wanted to go on Oprah (or wherever) and speak against this tosh would probably find it very hard to do so, given the vested interests involved.
Henry, I your point is exactly why I wrote this post…I feel the same way about all the complaining, with no action. While we sit and complain-life is passing the science community by.
Think about how forward thinking Carl Sagan was with the series Cosmos, which I argue went pretty far in the popular press in educating people about real science, and even speculated in a scientific way about the implications of space exploration.
On the other hand-it is not up to me unfortunately. I am a nobody postdoc in a lab…why would someone not choose to listen to McCarty given her pop-culture status?
Our scientists with pop culture status (there need to be more of them) have nothing to say.
I certainly volunteer myself to be the pop-culture/science icon. I have the indie rock street cred, now all I need is that blockbuster publication! :)
If you guys want to hurry up and make me an icon-I will further the cause! (But I want a full glossy on the cover of Science).
But I want a full glossy on the cover of Science
Well, I’ve made it onto the cover of Nature.com twice. The first time this happened, I almost fell of my
bar stoolperch and alerted tons of folks.10/12/07
“Dear Graham Steel
Greetings from the London offices of Nature Publishing Group! This is just a short note to say we have put you on our flagship website (nature.com) for Mon and Tue this week. So hopefully your profile, with your research interests and any of your activity on Nature Network, will be receiving more views than usual.
Thanks for joining Nature Network and please feel free to get in touch if you have any questions/comments/feedback.
Regards
Li Kim"
Giving away all our secrets, Graham…
How about Nature.com underwriting a huge music festival? I can see it now (imagine radio announcer voice:
“Bonnaroo, 2009-Coldplay and Mickey Avalon mashup with Dr. Dre and Cee Lo, sponsored by Nature.com.”
(and in that real quick “fine-print” semi-quiet voice they use to tell you all the exceptions)
“Lecture on TRP channels and dendritic Calcium to follow the music, tickets just 10 dollars for kids under 10…”
Seriously though, I would totally pose in front of my two-photon setup with my Gibson Les Paul (some cool GFP-tagged neuron picture on the monitor in the background) for the cover of Nature (come on editors, you know you want to do it)…
Headline: “Dr. Michael Nestor will rock the goo right out of your axons!”
Small print on the bottom of page: and he will be on Ellen tomorrow to debate Jenny McCarthy, former playboy model and MTV VJ on the merits of stem cell research in Autism.
………
OK, I am now officially an UBER-Geek. Science humor, yuk!
He’s here all week, folks.
The problem, to be serious for an attosec, is as follows. Let’s say you lobbied Oprah’s TV company to say that whatisname’s schtick about autism was so much snake oil, and that there really should be some science, for the sake of balance. What do you think you’d achieve? You don’t know?
So, I’ll tell you.
Bupkes.
And why? If the TV producer/ researcher/ contact is a complete airhead, which is more than likely, they simply won’t know what you’re talking about.
But if the TV producer/ researcher/ contact is not an airhead, and actually realizes you have a point, they still won’t give you airtime, because, perhaps, the contract with the celeb endorser will not allow for any contrary opinions to be expressed, and/or because the audience might be disturbed or confused if forced to confront conflicting information.
What people in science never seem to understand is that gullible people like to be gulled. They actively seek it out. Even if they know in their hearts it’s silly and not based on a shred of evidence, it provides them with a tiny crumb of certainty and solace in an uncertain and unfeeling world, even if they know it’s illusory. The failure of scientific types to understand this reflects, ironically, on the slight tinge of autism with which most scientists are dyed.
Good post, Michael.
On the link you provide, there are (at time of writing) 596 comments. I did not read them all ;-), but on the first page there were barely any that believed a word of it. A couple of comments were from scientists, others were from the public and they were not conned.
A second point, should “scientists” need to trawl around the Internet “defending” themselves and research? There is just so much rubbish out there. I see lots of ignorant lies written about Nature almost every time I go to certain scientific sites. What does one do? Wearily go into battle to be vilified yet again? Loftily ignore it? I don’t know the answer. Of course scientists need to engage with “the public” but is refuting cranks (whatever the degree of their celebrity) the best way? It is draining, demoralising and personally hurtful to engage in some of these ignorant and horrible sites (I have seen some dreadful autism/vaccine threads). Maybe scientists are better advised to visit and talk at schools and other public places (many of them, eg Richard Fortey, do the rounds of local book festivals and libraries, and well done to them), write articles in popular newspapers/magazines and so on, than to engage with all the loonies and spoilt children that seem to populate some parts of the internet.
Very well said Henry. Before you wrote that, I wrote this:-
—
Come to think of it, Guns, Germs and Steel (Maxine’s idea) never got a chance to have a combined chat at sciblog08.
Not even a pic of the band that split up before they formed. Now that is true Rock ’n Roll.
So I ask, Dr Nestor, would you contemplate being part of our groovy music gang who will sell millions (of units of something) and retire in a neat beach house in Cromer well before retirement?
There may not be a lot of celebrity scientists, but there are celebrities who like science and like debunking crap. A famous instance of this, as well as an excuse to embed a video again, is Fry and Laurie debunking astrology with James Randi:
(NB: I am at the lab and can’t check the sound. I read that it might be not so good in this clip.)
I’m not too familiar with the vaccine/autism paranoia, but undoubtedly there’s someone in the public eye smart enough to realize it’s crap. It doesn’t have to be a scientist, just a spokesperson for science would do.
Graham: I would love to join the roving band of “selling units of something to live on beach” as long as I get to be Dr. Teeth.
Maxine: You bring up really good points-and this is not an easy issue to think about-but I think ignoring it is the worst thing you can do. Taking a page from the american politicians (literally) who have set up “facts and truths” websites would be a passive way to start.
But science might want to think hard-and I am especially thinking about programs like the AAAS Mass Media Science & Engineering Fellows Program about actively cultivating spokespeople who are connected, engaged and (sorry) not socially awkward, who can get on a show and go toe to toe with this stuff-while relating to the population that looks up to someone like Jenny McCarthy.
Henry: my heart tells me you are too cynical about people, my mind tells me (sigh) you are probably right.